Politics

The previous post started with Trollope's commentary on how the finance system worked in the C19. In a wholly unplanned segue, this one deals with how economics is taught and practised now. To their immense credit, a group of students have got together to produce a detailed, evidence-based critique of the discipline: The Econocracy: the perils of leaving economics to the experts. Rethinking Economics is a movement which questions the assumptions on which most contemporary economics courses are based. To be more precise, it challenges the fact that most economics courses never question their own, neo-classical, assumptions: that people behave as rational knowledgeable agents seeking to optimise their own advantage, and…

Two PP-relevant books to report on. Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner has a chirpy title and a distinctive style. Katrina Marçal is a Swedish journalist who lays about her with relish. Her main target is homo economicus, beginning with the eponymous Scottish original. The answer to the title's question is 'his mother', and Marçal's treatment of AS is characteristic of her general approach: vigorous, often amusing, landing some good heavy punches, but not exactly even-handed. Old Adam gets labelled as an advocate of every=man-for-himself, with not much nuance about it, which is a tad simplistic. It's an enjoyable and stimulating book, and many economists deserve the mauling they get. When it…

The Select Committee on Women and Equalities has just published a hard-hitting and very well argued report on the Gender Pay Gap. A particular virtue is that it gives due attention to age, showing how the gender pay gap (GPG) increases over the life course. This leads it to a number of really interesting reflections and recommendations on how to improve the position of older women. The opening para gives a good flavour of the report's forthright style: "The UK’s gender pay gap of 19.2% represents a significant loss to productivity. Women are better educated and better qualified than ever before, yet their skills are not being fully utilised. Women over 40 are…

I've been reading Gillian Tett's new book, The Silo Effect. The basic argument is very simple: organisations fail because people work in silos which prevent them from sharing knowledge and ideas. Tett illustrates this with examples from diverse corners of the business world: the New York Fire Department, Sony, Apple and the Bank of England. Her overall argument is compelling, and most of us who have worked in organisations will recognise its application. ( This is one of the reasons why the Peter Principle was so successful - people nod their heads in acknowledgement of a broad generalisation to their own experience.) Sometimes, the silo construction is deliberate. This does…

Recent DfE figures confirm how far girls are ahead of boys in their learning, and how early this starts. 74% of the youngest children achieved their expected level of development, compared with 59% of boys. The figures for specific areas were as follows: - writing: 78/64 - reading: 82/71 - arithmetic: 81/74. The Guardian's headline read: " Girls starting school outperform boys in every learning goal", as they do throughout their educational careers. The same paper carried a profile yesterday of Becky Francis, an education adviser. According to the interview, Francis has argued for 20 years that too much attention has been paid 'to a relatively small gender gap,…

Exactly 40 years A Working Women's Charter was published. You can see a good TedX talk on it by Pamela Cox. On Saturday, a group which admirably aims to provide policy debates with a historical perspective, History & Policy, ran a meeting to reflect on how many of the original Charter's demands had been met, and what a new Charter might look like. The first Charter's 10 demands were (in abbreviated form - I looked for an online version of the more detailed list, but in vain): Equal pay Equal occupational opportunities Equal access to education and training Equal working conditions Equal legal rights Free childcare More paid…

The TV series Borgen is a rich source of material for the Paula Principle. We've just finished watching the first series (yes, I know, behind the times). Its principal character, Birgitte Nyborg, is leader of the Moderate party going into the Danish elections. She is married to an economics lecturer, with two school-age children, and one recurrent theme is her struggle to get home in time to see the children (and her husband). One episode illustrates in a fleeting moment the imposter syndrome - the tendency of women (more than men) to think that they are not qualified to have got to where they are. On the eve of the…

Pensions don't grab everyone. When I was a youngish researcher, about 35 years ago, I did a study of employee trustees of pension schemes, and how much influence they had on the way the schemes were managed. I got quite into this, since it seemed (and seems) to me really interesting that there were employees formally involved in the management of huge sums of capital (even then, in the early 1980s, the funds were worth many billions). "Pension fund socialism' was a prospect raised by the management guru of the time, Peter Drucker. In fact I got so into the topic that my friends used to make 'switch-it-off' gestures; years…

Chwaere Teg means 'fair play' in Welsh - a good title for an organisation that is doing excellent work promoting equality issues in Wales. I was in Newport last night giving a lecture for them on Paula (and chapeau to them - they aim to alternate female and male speakers in their lecture series, though the audience was 90% female). We had quite some discussion on careers. Chwaere Teg produced last year an excellent report, A Woman's Place, on women in the Welsh workforce. Welsh women are upping their learning - 55% have recently taken part in adult education or training, compared to just 39% in 1996, and a full…

I was chatting recently to a friend who lives in France. We were musing sadly over the state of a country which we both love - she as a long-term resident, me as a sometime resident and frequent visitor. The French economy is in poor shape, they have major social fractures, French culture seems to have lost its cutting edge; and the political situation is dire, from almost every angle. There was an interesting recent piece by a political journalist (I'm afraid I can't remember who it was) which argued that the French presidency was designed by de Gaulle for himself; more or less worked for him for most of…

The previous post started with Trollope's commentary on how the finance system worked in the C19. In a wholly unplanned segue, this one deals with how economics is taught and practised now. To their immense credit, a group of students have got together to produce a detailed, evidence-based critique of the discipline: The Econocracy: the perils of leaving economics to the experts. Rethinking Economics is a movement which questions the assumptions on which most contemporary economics courses are based. To be more precise, it challenges the fact that most economics courses never question their own, neo-classical, assumptions: that people behave as rational knowledgeable agents seeking to optimise their own advantage, and…

Two PP-relevant books to report on. Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner has a chirpy title and a distinctive style. Katrina Marçal is a Swedish journalist who lays about her with relish. Her main target is homo economicus, beginning with the eponymous Scottish original. The answer to the title's question is 'his mother', and Marçal's treatment of AS is characteristic of her general approach: vigorous, often amusing, landing some good heavy punches, but not exactly even-handed. Old Adam gets labelled as an advocate of every=man-for-himself, with not much nuance about it, which is a tad simplistic. It's an enjoyable and stimulating book, and many economists deserve the mauling they get. When it…

The Select Committee on Women and Equalities has just published a hard-hitting and very well argued report on the Gender Pay Gap. A particular virtue is that it gives due attention to age, showing how the gender pay gap (GPG) increases over the life course. This leads it to a number of really interesting reflections and recommendations on how to improve the position of older women. The opening para gives a good flavour of the report's forthright style: "The UK’s gender pay gap of 19.2% represents a significant loss to productivity. Women are better educated and better qualified than ever before, yet their skills are not being fully utilised. Women over 40 are…

I've been reading Gillian Tett's new book, The Silo Effect. The basic argument is very simple: organisations fail because people work in silos which prevent them from sharing knowledge and ideas. Tett illustrates this with examples from diverse corners of the business world: the New York Fire Department, Sony, Apple and the Bank of England. Her overall argument is compelling, and most of us who have worked in organisations will recognise its application. ( This is one of the reasons why the Peter Principle was so successful - people nod their heads in acknowledgement of a broad generalisation to their own experience.) Sometimes, the silo construction is deliberate. This does…

Recent DfE figures confirm how far girls are ahead of boys in their learning, and how early this starts. 74% of the youngest children achieved their expected level of development, compared with 59% of boys. The figures for specific areas were as follows: - writing: 78/64 - reading: 82/71 - arithmetic: 81/74. The Guardian's headline read: " Girls starting school outperform boys in every learning goal", as they do throughout their educational careers. The same paper carried a profile yesterday of Becky Francis, an education adviser. According to the interview, Francis has argued for 20 years that too much attention has been paid 'to a relatively small gender gap,…

Exactly 40 years A Working Women's Charter was published. You can see a good TedX talk on it by Pamela Cox. On Saturday, a group which admirably aims to provide policy debates with a historical perspective, History & Policy, ran a meeting to reflect on how many of the original Charter's demands had been met, and what a new Charter might look like. The first Charter's 10 demands were (in abbreviated form - I looked for an online version of the more detailed list, but in vain): Equal pay Equal occupational opportunities Equal access to education and training Equal working conditions Equal legal rights Free childcare More paid…

The TV series Borgen is a rich source of material for the Paula Principle. We've just finished watching the first series (yes, I know, behind the times). Its principal character, Birgitte Nyborg, is leader of the Moderate party going into the Danish elections. She is married to an economics lecturer, with two school-age children, and one recurrent theme is her struggle to get home in time to see the children (and her husband). One episode illustrates in a fleeting moment the imposter syndrome - the tendency of women (more than men) to think that they are not qualified to have got to where they are. On the eve of the…

Pensions don't grab everyone. When I was a youngish researcher, about 35 years ago, I did a study of employee trustees of pension schemes, and how much influence they had on the way the schemes were managed. I got quite into this, since it seemed (and seems) to me really interesting that there were employees formally involved in the management of huge sums of capital (even then, in the early 1980s, the funds were worth many billions). "Pension fund socialism' was a prospect raised by the management guru of the time, Peter Drucker. In fact I got so into the topic that my friends used to make 'switch-it-off' gestures; years…

Chwaere Teg means 'fair play' in Welsh - a good title for an organisation that is doing excellent work promoting equality issues in Wales. I was in Newport last night giving a lecture for them on Paula (and chapeau to them - they aim to alternate female and male speakers in their lecture series, though the audience was 90% female). We had quite some discussion on careers. Chwaere Teg produced last year an excellent report, A Woman's Place, on women in the Welsh workforce. Welsh women are upping their learning - 55% have recently taken part in adult education or training, compared to just 39% in 1996, and a full…

I was chatting recently to a friend who lives in France. We were musing sadly over the state of a country which we both love - she as a long-term resident, me as a sometime resident and frequent visitor. The French economy is in poor shape, they have major social fractures, French culture seems to have lost its cutting edge; and the political situation is dire, from almost every angle. There was an interesting recent piece by a political journalist (I'm afraid I can't remember who it was) which argued that the French presidency was designed by de Gaulle for himself; more or less worked for him for most of…

The previous post started with Trollope's commentary on how the finance system worked in the C19. In a wholly unplanned segue, this one deals with how economics is taught and practised now. To their immense credit, a group of students have got together to produce a detailed, evidence-based critique of the discipline: The Econocracy: the perils of leaving economics to the experts. Rethinking Economics is a movement which questions the assumptions on which most contemporary economics courses are based. To be more precise, it challenges the fact that most economics courses never question their own, neo-classical, assumptions: that people behave as rational knowledgeable agents seeking to optimise their own advantage, and…

Two PP-relevant books to report on. Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner has a chirpy title and a distinctive style. Katrina Marçal is a Swedish journalist who lays about her with relish. Her main target is homo economicus, beginning with the eponymous Scottish original. The answer to the title's question is 'his mother', and Marçal's treatment of AS is characteristic of her general approach: vigorous, often amusing, landing some good heavy punches, but not exactly even-handed. Old Adam gets labelled as an advocate of every=man-for-himself, with not much nuance about it, which is a tad simplistic. It's an enjoyable and stimulating book, and many economists deserve the mauling they get. When it…

The Select Committee on Women and Equalities has just published a hard-hitting and very well argued report on the Gender Pay Gap. A particular virtue is that it gives due attention to age, showing how the gender pay gap (GPG) increases over the life course. This leads it to a number of really interesting reflections and recommendations on how to improve the position of older women. The opening para gives a good flavour of the report's forthright style: "The UK’s gender pay gap of 19.2% represents a significant loss to productivity. Women are better educated and better qualified than ever before, yet their skills are not being fully utilised. Women over 40 are…

I've been reading Gillian Tett's new book, The Silo Effect. The basic argument is very simple: organisations fail because people work in silos which prevent them from sharing knowledge and ideas. Tett illustrates this with examples from diverse corners of the business world: the New York Fire Department, Sony, Apple and the Bank of England. Her overall argument is compelling, and most of us who have worked in organisations will recognise its application. ( This is one of the reasons why the Peter Principle was so successful - people nod their heads in acknowledgement of a broad generalisation to their own experience.) Sometimes, the silo construction is deliberate. This does…

Recent DfE figures confirm how far girls are ahead of boys in their learning, and how early this starts. 74% of the youngest children achieved their expected level of development, compared with 59% of boys. The figures for specific areas were as follows: - writing: 78/64 - reading: 82/71 - arithmetic: 81/74. The Guardian's headline read: " Girls starting school outperform boys in every learning goal", as they do throughout their educational careers. The same paper carried a profile yesterday of Becky Francis, an education adviser. According to the interview, Francis has argued for 20 years that too much attention has been paid 'to a relatively small gender gap,…

Exactly 40 years A Working Women's Charter was published. You can see a good TedX talk on it by Pamela Cox. On Saturday, a group which admirably aims to provide policy debates with a historical perspective, History & Policy, ran a meeting to reflect on how many of the original Charter's demands had been met, and what a new Charter might look like. The first Charter's 10 demands were (in abbreviated form - I looked for an online version of the more detailed list, but in vain): Equal pay Equal occupational opportunities Equal access to education and training Equal working conditions Equal legal rights Free childcare More paid…

The TV series Borgen is a rich source of material for the Paula Principle. We've just finished watching the first series (yes, I know, behind the times). Its principal character, Birgitte Nyborg, is leader of the Moderate party going into the Danish elections. She is married to an economics lecturer, with two school-age children, and one recurrent theme is her struggle to get home in time to see the children (and her husband). One episode illustrates in a fleeting moment the imposter syndrome - the tendency of women (more than men) to think that they are not qualified to have got to where they are. On the eve of the…

Pensions don't grab everyone. When I was a youngish researcher, about 35 years ago, I did a study of employee trustees of pension schemes, and how much influence they had on the way the schemes were managed. I got quite into this, since it seemed (and seems) to me really interesting that there were employees formally involved in the management of huge sums of capital (even then, in the early 1980s, the funds were worth many billions). "Pension fund socialism' was a prospect raised by the management guru of the time, Peter Drucker. In fact I got so into the topic that my friends used to make 'switch-it-off' gestures; years…

Chwaere Teg means 'fair play' in Welsh - a good title for an organisation that is doing excellent work promoting equality issues in Wales. I was in Newport last night giving a lecture for them on Paula (and chapeau to them - they aim to alternate female and male speakers in their lecture series, though the audience was 90% female). We had quite some discussion on careers. Chwaere Teg produced last year an excellent report, A Woman's Place, on women in the Welsh workforce. Welsh women are upping their learning - 55% have recently taken part in adult education or training, compared to just 39% in 1996, and a full…

I was chatting recently to a friend who lives in France. We were musing sadly over the state of a country which we both love - she as a long-term resident, me as a sometime resident and frequent visitor. The French economy is in poor shape, they have major social fractures, French culture seems to have lost its cutting edge; and the political situation is dire, from almost every angle. There was an interesting recent piece by a political journalist (I'm afraid I can't remember who it was) which argued that the French presidency was designed by de Gaulle for himself; more or less worked for him for most of…

The previous post started with Trollope's commentary on how the finance system worked in the C19. In a wholly unplanned segue, this one deals with how economics is taught and practised now. To their immense credit, a group of students have got together to produce a detailed, evidence-based critique of the discipline: The Econocracy: the perils of leaving economics to the experts. Rethinking Economics is a movement which questions the assumptions on which most contemporary economics courses are based. To be more precise, it challenges the fact that most economics courses never question their own, neo-classical, assumptions: that people behave as rational knowledgeable agents seeking to optimise their own advantage, and…

Two PP-relevant books to report on. Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner has a chirpy title and a distinctive style. Katrina Marçal is a Swedish journalist who lays about her with relish. Her main target is homo economicus, beginning with the eponymous Scottish original. The answer to the title's question is 'his mother', and Marçal's treatment of AS is characteristic of her general approach: vigorous, often amusing, landing some good heavy punches, but not exactly even-handed. Old Adam gets labelled as an advocate of every=man-for-himself, with not much nuance about it, which is a tad simplistic. It's an enjoyable and stimulating book, and many economists deserve the mauling they get. When it…

The Select Committee on Women and Equalities has just published a hard-hitting and very well argued report on the Gender Pay Gap. A particular virtue is that it gives due attention to age, showing how the gender pay gap (GPG) increases over the life course. This leads it to a number of really interesting reflections and recommendations on how to improve the position of older women. The opening para gives a good flavour of the report's forthright style: "The UK’s gender pay gap of 19.2% represents a significant loss to productivity. Women are better educated and better qualified than ever before, yet their skills are not being fully utilised. Women over 40 are…

I've been reading Gillian Tett's new book, The Silo Effect. The basic argument is very simple: organisations fail because people work in silos which prevent them from sharing knowledge and ideas. Tett illustrates this with examples from diverse corners of the business world: the New York Fire Department, Sony, Apple and the Bank of England. Her overall argument is compelling, and most of us who have worked in organisations will recognise its application. ( This is one of the reasons why the Peter Principle was so successful - people nod their heads in acknowledgement of a broad generalisation to their own experience.) Sometimes, the silo construction is deliberate. This does…

Recent DfE figures confirm how far girls are ahead of boys in their learning, and how early this starts. 74% of the youngest children achieved their expected level of development, compared with 59% of boys. The figures for specific areas were as follows: - writing: 78/64 - reading: 82/71 - arithmetic: 81/74. The Guardian's headline read: " Girls starting school outperform boys in every learning goal", as they do throughout their educational careers. The same paper carried a profile yesterday of Becky Francis, an education adviser. According to the interview, Francis has argued for 20 years that too much attention has been paid 'to a relatively small gender gap,…

Exactly 40 years A Working Women's Charter was published. You can see a good TedX talk on it by Pamela Cox. On Saturday, a group which admirably aims to provide policy debates with a historical perspective, History & Policy, ran a meeting to reflect on how many of the original Charter's demands had been met, and what a new Charter might look like. The first Charter's 10 demands were (in abbreviated form - I looked for an online version of the more detailed list, but in vain): Equal pay Equal occupational opportunities Equal access to education and training Equal working conditions Equal legal rights Free childcare More paid…

The TV series Borgen is a rich source of material for the Paula Principle. We've just finished watching the first series (yes, I know, behind the times). Its principal character, Birgitte Nyborg, is leader of the Moderate party going into the Danish elections. She is married to an economics lecturer, with two school-age children, and one recurrent theme is her struggle to get home in time to see the children (and her husband). One episode illustrates in a fleeting moment the imposter syndrome - the tendency of women (more than men) to think that they are not qualified to have got to where they are. On the eve of the…

Pensions don't grab everyone. When I was a youngish researcher, about 35 years ago, I did a study of employee trustees of pension schemes, and how much influence they had on the way the schemes were managed. I got quite into this, since it seemed (and seems) to me really interesting that there were employees formally involved in the management of huge sums of capital (even then, in the early 1980s, the funds were worth many billions). "Pension fund socialism' was a prospect raised by the management guru of the time, Peter Drucker. In fact I got so into the topic that my friends used to make 'switch-it-off' gestures; years…

Chwaere Teg means 'fair play' in Welsh - a good title for an organisation that is doing excellent work promoting equality issues in Wales. I was in Newport last night giving a lecture for them on Paula (and chapeau to them - they aim to alternate female and male speakers in their lecture series, though the audience was 90% female). We had quite some discussion on careers. Chwaere Teg produced last year an excellent report, A Woman's Place, on women in the Welsh workforce. Welsh women are upping their learning - 55% have recently taken part in adult education or training, compared to just 39% in 1996, and a full…

I was chatting recently to a friend who lives in France. We were musing sadly over the state of a country which we both love - she as a long-term resident, me as a sometime resident and frequent visitor. The French economy is in poor shape, they have major social fractures, French culture seems to have lost its cutting edge; and the political situation is dire, from almost every angle. There was an interesting recent piece by a political journalist (I'm afraid I can't remember who it was) which argued that the French presidency was designed by de Gaulle for himself; more or less worked for him for most of…

The previous post started with Trollope's commentary on how the finance system worked in the C19. In a wholly unplanned segue, this one deals with how economics is taught and practised now. To their immense credit, a group of students have got together to produce a detailed, evidence-based critique of the discipline: The Econocracy: the perils of leaving economics to the experts. Rethinking Economics is a movement which questions the assumptions on which most contemporary economics courses are based. To be more precise, it challenges the fact that most economics courses never question their own, neo-classical, assumptions: that people behave as rational knowledgeable agents seeking to optimise their own advantage, and…

Two PP-relevant books to report on. Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner has a chirpy title and a distinctive style. Katrina Marçal is a Swedish journalist who lays about her with relish. Her main target is homo economicus, beginning with the eponymous Scottish original. The answer to the title's question is 'his mother', and Marçal's treatment of AS is characteristic of her general approach: vigorous, often amusing, landing some good heavy punches, but not exactly even-handed. Old Adam gets labelled as an advocate of every=man-for-himself, with not much nuance about it, which is a tad simplistic. It's an enjoyable and stimulating book, and many economists deserve the mauling they get. When it…

The Select Committee on Women and Equalities has just published a hard-hitting and very well argued report on the Gender Pay Gap. A particular virtue is that it gives due attention to age, showing how the gender pay gap (GPG) increases over the life course. This leads it to a number of really interesting reflections and recommendations on how to improve the position of older women. The opening para gives a good flavour of the report's forthright style: "The UK’s gender pay gap of 19.2% represents a significant loss to productivity. Women are better educated and better qualified than ever before, yet their skills are not being fully utilised. Women over 40 are…

I've been reading Gillian Tett's new book, The Silo Effect. The basic argument is very simple: organisations fail because people work in silos which prevent them from sharing knowledge and ideas. Tett illustrates this with examples from diverse corners of the business world: the New York Fire Department, Sony, Apple and the Bank of England. Her overall argument is compelling, and most of us who have worked in organisations will recognise its application. ( This is one of the reasons why the Peter Principle was so successful - people nod their heads in acknowledgement of a broad generalisation to their own experience.) Sometimes, the silo construction is deliberate. This does…

Recent DfE figures confirm how far girls are ahead of boys in their learning, and how early this starts. 74% of the youngest children achieved their expected level of development, compared with 59% of boys. The figures for specific areas were as follows: - writing: 78/64 - reading: 82/71 - arithmetic: 81/74. The Guardian's headline read: " Girls starting school outperform boys in every learning goal", as they do throughout their educational careers. The same paper carried a profile yesterday of Becky Francis, an education adviser. According to the interview, Francis has argued for 20 years that too much attention has been paid 'to a relatively small gender gap,…

Exactly 40 years A Working Women's Charter was published. You can see a good TedX talk on it by Pamela Cox. On Saturday, a group which admirably aims to provide policy debates with a historical perspective, History & Policy, ran a meeting to reflect on how many of the original Charter's demands had been met, and what a new Charter might look like. The first Charter's 10 demands were (in abbreviated form - I looked for an online version of the more detailed list, but in vain): Equal pay Equal occupational opportunities Equal access to education and training Equal working conditions Equal legal rights Free childcare More paid…

The TV series Borgen is a rich source of material for the Paula Principle. We've just finished watching the first series (yes, I know, behind the times). Its principal character, Birgitte Nyborg, is leader of the Moderate party going into the Danish elections. She is married to an economics lecturer, with two school-age children, and one recurrent theme is her struggle to get home in time to see the children (and her husband). One episode illustrates in a fleeting moment the imposter syndrome - the tendency of women (more than men) to think that they are not qualified to have got to where they are. On the eve of the…

Pensions don't grab everyone. When I was a youngish researcher, about 35 years ago, I did a study of employee trustees of pension schemes, and how much influence they had on the way the schemes were managed. I got quite into this, since it seemed (and seems) to me really interesting that there were employees formally involved in the management of huge sums of capital (even then, in the early 1980s, the funds were worth many billions). "Pension fund socialism' was a prospect raised by the management guru of the time, Peter Drucker. In fact I got so into the topic that my friends used to make 'switch-it-off' gestures; years…

Chwaere Teg means 'fair play' in Welsh - a good title for an organisation that is doing excellent work promoting equality issues in Wales. I was in Newport last night giving a lecture for them on Paula (and chapeau to them - they aim to alternate female and male speakers in their lecture series, though the audience was 90% female). We had quite some discussion on careers. Chwaere Teg produced last year an excellent report, A Woman's Place, on women in the Welsh workforce. Welsh women are upping their learning - 55% have recently taken part in adult education or training, compared to just 39% in 1996, and a full…

I was chatting recently to a friend who lives in France. We were musing sadly over the state of a country which we both love - she as a long-term resident, me as a sometime resident and frequent visitor. The French economy is in poor shape, they have major social fractures, French culture seems to have lost its cutting edge; and the political situation is dire, from almost every angle. There was an interesting recent piece by a political journalist (I'm afraid I can't remember who it was) which argued that the French presidency was designed by de Gaulle for himself; more or less worked for him for most of…

The previous post started with Trollope's commentary on how the finance system worked in the C19. In a wholly unplanned segue, this one deals with how economics is taught and practised now. To their immense credit, a group of students have got together to produce a detailed, evidence-based critique of the discipline: The Econocracy: the perils of leaving economics to the experts. Rethinking Economics is a movement which questions the assumptions on which most contemporary economics courses are based. To be more precise, it challenges the fact that most economics courses never question their own, neo-classical, assumptions: that people behave as rational knowledgeable agents seeking to optimise their own advantage, and…

Two PP-relevant books to report on. Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner has a chirpy title and a distinctive style. Katrina Marçal is a Swedish journalist who lays about her with relish. Her main target is homo economicus, beginning with the eponymous Scottish original. The answer to the title's question is 'his mother', and Marçal's treatment of AS is characteristic of her general approach: vigorous, often amusing, landing some good heavy punches, but not exactly even-handed. Old Adam gets labelled as an advocate of every=man-for-himself, with not much nuance about it, which is a tad simplistic. It's an enjoyable and stimulating book, and many economists deserve the mauling they get. When it…

The Select Committee on Women and Equalities has just published a hard-hitting and very well argued report on the Gender Pay Gap. A particular virtue is that it gives due attention to age, showing how the gender pay gap (GPG) increases over the life course. This leads it to a number of really interesting reflections and recommendations on how to improve the position of older women. The opening para gives a good flavour of the report's forthright style: "The UK’s gender pay gap of 19.2% represents a significant loss to productivity. Women are better educated and better qualified than ever before, yet their skills are not being fully utilised. Women over 40 are…

I've been reading Gillian Tett's new book, The Silo Effect. The basic argument is very simple: organisations fail because people work in silos which prevent them from sharing knowledge and ideas. Tett illustrates this with examples from diverse corners of the business world: the New York Fire Department, Sony, Apple and the Bank of England. Her overall argument is compelling, and most of us who have worked in organisations will recognise its application. ( This is one of the reasons why the Peter Principle was so successful - people nod their heads in acknowledgement of a broad generalisation to their own experience.) Sometimes, the silo construction is deliberate. This does…

Recent DfE figures confirm how far girls are ahead of boys in their learning, and how early this starts. 74% of the youngest children achieved their expected level of development, compared with 59% of boys. The figures for specific areas were as follows: - writing: 78/64 - reading: 82/71 - arithmetic: 81/74. The Guardian's headline read: " Girls starting school outperform boys in every learning goal", as they do throughout their educational careers. The same paper carried a profile yesterday of Becky Francis, an education adviser. According to the interview, Francis has argued for 20 years that too much attention has been paid 'to a relatively small gender gap,…

Exactly 40 years A Working Women's Charter was published. You can see a good TedX talk on it by Pamela Cox. On Saturday, a group which admirably aims to provide policy debates with a historical perspective, History & Policy, ran a meeting to reflect on how many of the original Charter's demands had been met, and what a new Charter might look like. The first Charter's 10 demands were (in abbreviated form - I looked for an online version of the more detailed list, but in vain): Equal pay Equal occupational opportunities Equal access to education and training Equal working conditions Equal legal rights Free childcare More paid…

The TV series Borgen is a rich source of material for the Paula Principle. We've just finished watching the first series (yes, I know, behind the times). Its principal character, Birgitte Nyborg, is leader of the Moderate party going into the Danish elections. She is married to an economics lecturer, with two school-age children, and one recurrent theme is her struggle to get home in time to see the children (and her husband). One episode illustrates in a fleeting moment the imposter syndrome - the tendency of women (more than men) to think that they are not qualified to have got to where they are. On the eve of the…

Pensions don't grab everyone. When I was a youngish researcher, about 35 years ago, I did a study of employee trustees of pension schemes, and how much influence they had on the way the schemes were managed. I got quite into this, since it seemed (and seems) to me really interesting that there were employees formally involved in the management of huge sums of capital (even then, in the early 1980s, the funds were worth many billions). "Pension fund socialism' was a prospect raised by the management guru of the time, Peter Drucker. In fact I got so into the topic that my friends used to make 'switch-it-off' gestures; years…

Chwaere Teg means 'fair play' in Welsh - a good title for an organisation that is doing excellent work promoting equality issues in Wales. I was in Newport last night giving a lecture for them on Paula (and chapeau to them - they aim to alternate female and male speakers in their lecture series, though the audience was 90% female). We had quite some discussion on careers. Chwaere Teg produced last year an excellent report, A Woman's Place, on women in the Welsh workforce. Welsh women are upping their learning - 55% have recently taken part in adult education or training, compared to just 39% in 1996, and a full…

I was chatting recently to a friend who lives in France. We were musing sadly over the state of a country which we both love - she as a long-term resident, me as a sometime resident and frequent visitor. The French economy is in poor shape, they have major social fractures, French culture seems to have lost its cutting edge; and the political situation is dire, from almost every angle. There was an interesting recent piece by a political journalist (I'm afraid I can't remember who it was) which argued that the French presidency was designed by de Gaulle for himself; more or less worked for him for most of…

The previous post started with Trollope's commentary on how the finance system worked in the C19. In a wholly unplanned segue, this one deals with how economics is taught and practised now. To their immense credit, a group of students have got together to produce a detailed, evidence-based critique of the discipline: The Econocracy: the perils of leaving economics to the experts. Rethinking Economics is a movement which questions the assumptions on which most contemporary economics courses are based. To be more precise, it challenges the fact that most economics courses never question their own, neo-classical, assumptions: that people behave as rational knowledgeable agents seeking to optimise their own advantage, and…

Two PP-relevant books to report on. Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner has a chirpy title and a distinctive style. Katrina Marçal is a Swedish journalist who lays about her with relish. Her main target is homo economicus, beginning with the eponymous Scottish original. The answer to the title's question is 'his mother', and Marçal's treatment of AS is characteristic of her general approach: vigorous, often amusing, landing some good heavy punches, but not exactly even-handed. Old Adam gets labelled as an advocate of every=man-for-himself, with not much nuance about it, which is a tad simplistic. It's an enjoyable and stimulating book, and many economists deserve the mauling they get. When it…

The Select Committee on Women and Equalities has just published a hard-hitting and very well argued report on the Gender Pay Gap. A particular virtue is that it gives due attention to age, showing how the gender pay gap (GPG) increases over the life course. This leads it to a number of really interesting reflections and recommendations on how to improve the position of older women. The opening para gives a good flavour of the report's forthright style: "The UK’s gender pay gap of 19.2% represents a significant loss to productivity. Women are better educated and better qualified than ever before, yet their skills are not being fully utilised. Women over 40 are…

I've been reading Gillian Tett's new book, The Silo Effect. The basic argument is very simple: organisations fail because people work in silos which prevent them from sharing knowledge and ideas. Tett illustrates this with examples from diverse corners of the business world: the New York Fire Department, Sony, Apple and the Bank of England. Her overall argument is compelling, and most of us who have worked in organisations will recognise its application. ( This is one of the reasons why the Peter Principle was so successful - people nod their heads in acknowledgement of a broad generalisation to their own experience.) Sometimes, the silo construction is deliberate. This does…

Recent DfE figures confirm how far girls are ahead of boys in their learning, and how early this starts. 74% of the youngest children achieved their expected level of development, compared with 59% of boys. The figures for specific areas were as follows: - writing: 78/64 - reading: 82/71 - arithmetic: 81/74. The Guardian's headline read: " Girls starting school outperform boys in every learning goal", as they do throughout their educational careers. The same paper carried a profile yesterday of Becky Francis, an education adviser. According to the interview, Francis has argued for 20 years that too much attention has been paid 'to a relatively small gender gap,…

Exactly 40 years A Working Women's Charter was published. You can see a good TedX talk on it by Pamela Cox. On Saturday, a group which admirably aims to provide policy debates with a historical perspective, History & Policy, ran a meeting to reflect on how many of the original Charter's demands had been met, and what a new Charter might look like. The first Charter's 10 demands were (in abbreviated form - I looked for an online version of the more detailed list, but in vain): Equal pay Equal occupational opportunities Equal access to education and training Equal working conditions Equal legal rights Free childcare More paid…

The TV series Borgen is a rich source of material for the Paula Principle. We've just finished watching the first series (yes, I know, behind the times). Its principal character, Birgitte Nyborg, is leader of the Moderate party going into the Danish elections. She is married to an economics lecturer, with two school-age children, and one recurrent theme is her struggle to get home in time to see the children (and her husband). One episode illustrates in a fleeting moment the imposter syndrome - the tendency of women (more than men) to think that they are not qualified to have got to where they are. On the eve of the…

Pensions don't grab everyone. When I was a youngish researcher, about 35 years ago, I did a study of employee trustees of pension schemes, and how much influence they had on the way the schemes were managed. I got quite into this, since it seemed (and seems) to me really interesting that there were employees formally involved in the management of huge sums of capital (even then, in the early 1980s, the funds were worth many billions). "Pension fund socialism' was a prospect raised by the management guru of the time, Peter Drucker. In fact I got so into the topic that my friends used to make 'switch-it-off' gestures; years…

Chwaere Teg means 'fair play' in Welsh - a good title for an organisation that is doing excellent work promoting equality issues in Wales. I was in Newport last night giving a lecture for them on Paula (and chapeau to them - they aim to alternate female and male speakers in their lecture series, though the audience was 90% female). We had quite some discussion on careers. Chwaere Teg produced last year an excellent report, A Woman's Place, on women in the Welsh workforce. Welsh women are upping their learning - 55% have recently taken part in adult education or training, compared to just 39% in 1996, and a full…

I was chatting recently to a friend who lives in France. We were musing sadly over the state of a country which we both love - she as a long-term resident, me as a sometime resident and frequent visitor. The French economy is in poor shape, they have major social fractures, French culture seems to have lost its cutting edge; and the political situation is dire, from almost every angle. There was an interesting recent piece by a political journalist (I'm afraid I can't remember who it was) which argued that the French presidency was designed by de Gaulle for himself; more or less worked for him for most of…

The previous post started with Trollope's commentary on how the finance system worked in the C19. In a wholly unplanned segue, this one deals with how economics is taught and practised now. To their immense credit, a group of students have got together to produce a detailed, evidence-based critique of the discipline: The Econocracy: the perils of leaving economics to the experts. Rethinking Economics is a movement which questions the assumptions on which most contemporary economics courses are based. To be more precise, it challenges the fact that most economics courses never question their own, neo-classical, assumptions: that people behave as rational knowledgeable agents seeking to optimise their own advantage, and…

Two PP-relevant books to report on. Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner has a chirpy title and a distinctive style. Katrina Marçal is a Swedish journalist who lays about her with relish. Her main target is homo economicus, beginning with the eponymous Scottish original. The answer to the title's question is 'his mother', and Marçal's treatment of AS is characteristic of her general approach: vigorous, often amusing, landing some good heavy punches, but not exactly even-handed. Old Adam gets labelled as an advocate of every=man-for-himself, with not much nuance about it, which is a tad simplistic. It's an enjoyable and stimulating book, and many economists deserve the mauling they get. When it…

The Select Committee on Women and Equalities has just published a hard-hitting and very well argued report on the Gender Pay Gap. A particular virtue is that it gives due attention to age, showing how the gender pay gap (GPG) increases over the life course. This leads it to a number of really interesting reflections and recommendations on how to improve the position of older women. The opening para gives a good flavour of the report's forthright style: "The UK’s gender pay gap of 19.2% represents a significant loss to productivity. Women are better educated and better qualified than ever before, yet their skills are not being fully utilised. Women over 40 are…

I've been reading Gillian Tett's new book, The Silo Effect. The basic argument is very simple: organisations fail because people work in silos which prevent them from sharing knowledge and ideas. Tett illustrates this with examples from diverse corners of the business world: the New York Fire Department, Sony, Apple and the Bank of England. Her overall argument is compelling, and most of us who have worked in organisations will recognise its application. ( This is one of the reasons why the Peter Principle was so successful - people nod their heads in acknowledgement of a broad generalisation to their own experience.) Sometimes, the silo construction is deliberate. This does…

Recent DfE figures confirm how far girls are ahead of boys in their learning, and how early this starts. 74% of the youngest children achieved their expected level of development, compared with 59% of boys. The figures for specific areas were as follows: - writing: 78/64 - reading: 82/71 - arithmetic: 81/74. The Guardian's headline read: " Girls starting school outperform boys in every learning goal", as they do throughout their educational careers. The same paper carried a profile yesterday of Becky Francis, an education adviser. According to the interview, Francis has argued for 20 years that too much attention has been paid 'to a relatively small gender gap,…

Exactly 40 years A Working Women's Charter was published. You can see a good TedX talk on it by Pamela Cox. On Saturday, a group which admirably aims to provide policy debates with a historical perspective, History & Policy, ran a meeting to reflect on how many of the original Charter's demands had been met, and what a new Charter might look like. The first Charter's 10 demands were (in abbreviated form - I looked for an online version of the more detailed list, but in vain): Equal pay Equal occupational opportunities Equal access to education and training Equal working conditions Equal legal rights Free childcare More paid…

The TV series Borgen is a rich source of material for the Paula Principle. We've just finished watching the first series (yes, I know, behind the times). Its principal character, Birgitte Nyborg, is leader of the Moderate party going into the Danish elections. She is married to an economics lecturer, with two school-age children, and one recurrent theme is her struggle to get home in time to see the children (and her husband). One episode illustrates in a fleeting moment the imposter syndrome - the tendency of women (more than men) to think that they are not qualified to have got to where they are. On the eve of the…

Pensions don't grab everyone. When I was a youngish researcher, about 35 years ago, I did a study of employee trustees of pension schemes, and how much influence they had on the way the schemes were managed. I got quite into this, since it seemed (and seems) to me really interesting that there were employees formally involved in the management of huge sums of capital (even then, in the early 1980s, the funds were worth many billions). "Pension fund socialism' was a prospect raised by the management guru of the time, Peter Drucker. In fact I got so into the topic that my friends used to make 'switch-it-off' gestures; years…

Chwaere Teg means 'fair play' in Welsh - a good title for an organisation that is doing excellent work promoting equality issues in Wales. I was in Newport last night giving a lecture for them on Paula (and chapeau to them - they aim to alternate female and male speakers in their lecture series, though the audience was 90% female). We had quite some discussion on careers. Chwaere Teg produced last year an excellent report, A Woman's Place, on women in the Welsh workforce. Welsh women are upping their learning - 55% have recently taken part in adult education or training, compared to just 39% in 1996, and a full…

I was chatting recently to a friend who lives in France. We were musing sadly over the state of a country which we both love - she as a long-term resident, me as a sometime resident and frequent visitor. The French economy is in poor shape, they have major social fractures, French culture seems to have lost its cutting edge; and the political situation is dire, from almost every angle. There was an interesting recent piece by a political journalist (I'm afraid I can't remember who it was) which argued that the French presidency was designed by de Gaulle for himself; more or less worked for him for most of…

The previous post started with Trollope's commentary on how the finance system worked in the C19. In a wholly unplanned segue, this one deals with how economics is taught and practised now. To their immense credit, a group of students have got together to produce a detailed, evidence-based critique of the discipline: The Econocracy: the perils of leaving economics to the experts. Rethinking Economics is a movement which questions the assumptions on which most contemporary economics courses are based. To be more precise, it challenges the fact that most economics courses never question their own, neo-classical, assumptions: that people behave as rational knowledgeable agents seeking to optimise their own advantage, and…

Two PP-relevant books to report on. Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner has a chirpy title and a distinctive style. Katrina Marçal is a Swedish journalist who lays about her with relish. Her main target is homo economicus, beginning with the eponymous Scottish original. The answer to the title's question is 'his mother', and Marçal's treatment of AS is characteristic of her general approach: vigorous, often amusing, landing some good heavy punches, but not exactly even-handed. Old Adam gets labelled as an advocate of every=man-for-himself, with not much nuance about it, which is a tad simplistic. It's an enjoyable and stimulating book, and many economists deserve the mauling they get. When it…

The Select Committee on Women and Equalities has just published a hard-hitting and very well argued report on the Gender Pay Gap. A particular virtue is that it gives due attention to age, showing how the gender pay gap (GPG) increases over the life course. This leads it to a number of really interesting reflections and recommendations on how to improve the position of older women. The opening para gives a good flavour of the report's forthright style: "The UK’s gender pay gap of 19.2% represents a significant loss to productivity. Women are better educated and better qualified than ever before, yet their skills are not being fully utilised. Women over 40 are…

I've been reading Gillian Tett's new book, The Silo Effect. The basic argument is very simple: organisations fail because people work in silos which prevent them from sharing knowledge and ideas. Tett illustrates this with examples from diverse corners of the business world: the New York Fire Department, Sony, Apple and the Bank of England. Her overall argument is compelling, and most of us who have worked in organisations will recognise its application. ( This is one of the reasons why the Peter Principle was so successful - people nod their heads in acknowledgement of a broad generalisation to their own experience.) Sometimes, the silo construction is deliberate. This does…

Recent DfE figures confirm how far girls are ahead of boys in their learning, and how early this starts. 74% of the youngest children achieved their expected level of development, compared with 59% of boys. The figures for specific areas were as follows: - writing: 78/64 - reading: 82/71 - arithmetic: 81/74. The Guardian's headline read: " Girls starting school outperform boys in every learning goal", as they do throughout their educational careers. The same paper carried a profile yesterday of Becky Francis, an education adviser. According to the interview, Francis has argued for 20 years that too much attention has been paid 'to a relatively small gender gap,…

Exactly 40 years A Working Women's Charter was published. You can see a good TedX talk on it by Pamela Cox. On Saturday, a group which admirably aims to provide policy debates with a historical perspective, History & Policy, ran a meeting to reflect on how many of the original Charter's demands had been met, and what a new Charter might look like. The first Charter's 10 demands were (in abbreviated form - I looked for an online version of the more detailed list, but in vain): Equal pay Equal occupational opportunities Equal access to education and training Equal working conditions Equal legal rights Free childcare More paid…

The TV series Borgen is a rich source of material for the Paula Principle. We've just finished watching the first series (yes, I know, behind the times). Its principal character, Birgitte Nyborg, is leader of the Moderate party going into the Danish elections. She is married to an economics lecturer, with two school-age children, and one recurrent theme is her struggle to get home in time to see the children (and her husband). One episode illustrates in a fleeting moment the imposter syndrome - the tendency of women (more than men) to think that they are not qualified to have got to where they are. On the eve of the…

Pensions don't grab everyone. When I was a youngish researcher, about 35 years ago, I did a study of employee trustees of pension schemes, and how much influence they had on the way the schemes were managed. I got quite into this, since it seemed (and seems) to me really interesting that there were employees formally involved in the management of huge sums of capital (even then, in the early 1980s, the funds were worth many billions). "Pension fund socialism' was a prospect raised by the management guru of the time, Peter Drucker. In fact I got so into the topic that my friends used to make 'switch-it-off' gestures; years…

Chwaere Teg means 'fair play' in Welsh - a good title for an organisation that is doing excellent work promoting equality issues in Wales. I was in Newport last night giving a lecture for them on Paula (and chapeau to them - they aim to alternate female and male speakers in their lecture series, though the audience was 90% female). We had quite some discussion on careers. Chwaere Teg produced last year an excellent report, A Woman's Place, on women in the Welsh workforce. Welsh women are upping their learning - 55% have recently taken part in adult education or training, compared to just 39% in 1996, and a full…

I was chatting recently to a friend who lives in France. We were musing sadly over the state of a country which we both love - she as a long-term resident, me as a sometime resident and frequent visitor. The French economy is in poor shape, they have major social fractures, French culture seems to have lost its cutting edge; and the political situation is dire, from almost every angle. There was an interesting recent piece by a political journalist (I'm afraid I can't remember who it was) which argued that the French presidency was designed by de Gaulle for himself; more or less worked for him for most of…

The previous post started with Trollope's commentary on how the finance system worked in the C19. In a wholly unplanned segue, this one deals with how economics is taught and practised now. To their immense credit, a group of students have got together to produce a detailed, evidence-based critique of the discipline: The Econocracy: the perils of leaving economics to the experts. Rethinking Economics is a movement which questions the assumptions on which most contemporary economics courses are based. To be more precise, it challenges the fact that most economics courses never question their own, neo-classical, assumptions: that people behave as rational knowledgeable agents seeking to optimise their own advantage, and…

Two PP-relevant books to report on. Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner has a chirpy title and a distinctive style. Katrina Marçal is a Swedish journalist who lays about her with relish. Her main target is homo economicus, beginning with the eponymous Scottish original. The answer to the title's question is 'his mother', and Marçal's treatment of AS is characteristic of her general approach: vigorous, often amusing, landing some good heavy punches, but not exactly even-handed. Old Adam gets labelled as an advocate of every=man-for-himself, with not much nuance about it, which is a tad simplistic. It's an enjoyable and stimulating book, and many economists deserve the mauling they get. When it…

The Select Committee on Women and Equalities has just published a hard-hitting and very well argued report on the Gender Pay Gap. A particular virtue is that it gives due attention to age, showing how the gender pay gap (GPG) increases over the life course. This leads it to a number of really interesting reflections and recommendations on how to improve the position of older women. The opening para gives a good flavour of the report's forthright style: "The UK’s gender pay gap of 19.2% represents a significant loss to productivity. Women are better educated and better qualified than ever before, yet their skills are not being fully utilised. Women over 40 are…

I've been reading Gillian Tett's new book, The Silo Effect. The basic argument is very simple: organisations fail because people work in silos which prevent them from sharing knowledge and ideas. Tett illustrates this with examples from diverse corners of the business world: the New York Fire Department, Sony, Apple and the Bank of England. Her overall argument is compelling, and most of us who have worked in organisations will recognise its application. ( This is one of the reasons why the Peter Principle was so successful - people nod their heads in acknowledgement of a broad generalisation to their own experience.) Sometimes, the silo construction is deliberate. This does…

Recent DfE figures confirm how far girls are ahead of boys in their learning, and how early this starts. 74% of the youngest children achieved their expected level of development, compared with 59% of boys. The figures for specific areas were as follows: - writing: 78/64 - reading: 82/71 - arithmetic: 81/74. The Guardian's headline read: " Girls starting school outperform boys in every learning goal", as they do throughout their educational careers. The same paper carried a profile yesterday of Becky Francis, an education adviser. According to the interview, Francis has argued for 20 years that too much attention has been paid 'to a relatively small gender gap,…

Exactly 40 years A Working Women's Charter was published. You can see a good TedX talk on it by Pamela Cox. On Saturday, a group which admirably aims to provide policy debates with a historical perspective, History & Policy, ran a meeting to reflect on how many of the original Charter's demands had been met, and what a new Charter might look like. The first Charter's 10 demands were (in abbreviated form - I looked for an online version of the more detailed list, but in vain): Equal pay Equal occupational opportunities Equal access to education and training Equal working conditions Equal legal rights Free childcare More paid…

The TV series Borgen is a rich source of material for the Paula Principle. We've just finished watching the first series (yes, I know, behind the times). Its principal character, Birgitte Nyborg, is leader of the Moderate party going into the Danish elections. She is married to an economics lecturer, with two school-age children, and one recurrent theme is her struggle to get home in time to see the children (and her husband). One episode illustrates in a fleeting moment the imposter syndrome - the tendency of women (more than men) to think that they are not qualified to have got to where they are. On the eve of the…

Pensions don't grab everyone. When I was a youngish researcher, about 35 years ago, I did a study of employee trustees of pension schemes, and how much influence they had on the way the schemes were managed. I got quite into this, since it seemed (and seems) to me really interesting that there were employees formally involved in the management of huge sums of capital (even then, in the early 1980s, the funds were worth many billions). "Pension fund socialism' was a prospect raised by the management guru of the time, Peter Drucker. In fact I got so into the topic that my friends used to make 'switch-it-off' gestures; years…

Chwaere Teg means 'fair play' in Welsh - a good title for an organisation that is doing excellent work promoting equality issues in Wales. I was in Newport last night giving a lecture for them on Paula (and chapeau to them - they aim to alternate female and male speakers in their lecture series, though the audience was 90% female). We had quite some discussion on careers. Chwaere Teg produced last year an excellent report, A Woman's Place, on women in the Welsh workforce. Welsh women are upping their learning - 55% have recently taken part in adult education or training, compared to just 39% in 1996, and a full…

I was chatting recently to a friend who lives in France. We were musing sadly over the state of a country which we both love - she as a long-term resident, me as a sometime resident and frequent visitor. The French economy is in poor shape, they have major social fractures, French culture seems to have lost its cutting edge; and the political situation is dire, from almost every angle. There was an interesting recent piece by a political journalist (I'm afraid I can't remember who it was) which argued that the French presidency was designed by de Gaulle for himself; more or less worked for him for most of…